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Where Next for Evidence Synthesis of Prognostic Marker Studies? Improving the Quality and Reporting of Primary Studies to Facilitate Clinically Relevant Evidence-Based Results

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Advances in Statistical Methods for the Health Sciences

Part of the book series: Statistics for Industry and Technology ((SIT))

Abstract

Prognostic markers can help to identify patients with different risks of specific outcomes, facilitate treatment choice, and aid patient counselling. Unfortunately, within any given disease area, the wealth of conflicting and heterogeneous evidence makes it difficult for the clinician to ascertain the overall evidence about specific markers and how to use them in practice. The application of formal methods (e.g., a systematic review and meta-analysis) of obtaining and synthesising evidence is therefore greatly needed in the prognostic marker field. However, in this chapter we illustrate and discuss the reasons why currently poor standards of design, clinical relevance, and reporting in primary studies limit statistically reliable and clinically relevant evidence-based results for prognostic markers. These problems add to those issues for the statistical analysis in primary studies that are discussed in another chapter in this volume. To help overcome the problems we highlight guidelines for conducting and reporting primary prognostic research, and we particularly discuss why the availability of individual patient data would help realise the evidence-based use of prognostic markers in clinical practice.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, Princess Road West, Leicester, UK

    Richard D. Riley, Keith R. Abrams, Paul C. Lambert & Alex J. Sutton

  2. Wolfson College, Oxford, UK

    Douglas G. Altman

Authors
  1. Richard D. Riley
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  2. Keith R. Abrams
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  3. Paul C. Lambert
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  4. Alex J. Sutton
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  5. Douglas G. Altman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UFR of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 1 rue Gaston Veil, 44035, Nantes Cedex 1, France

    Jean-Louis Auget

  2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1, Canada

    N. Balakrishnan

  3. Laboratoire de Statistique Théorie et Appliquée, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 175 rue de Chevaleret, 75013, Paris, France

    Mounir Mesbah

  4. Center for Statistics, Hasselt University, Agoralaan-Building D, 3590, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Geert Molenberghs

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© 2007 Birkhäuser Boston

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Riley, R.D., Abrams, K.R., Lambert, P.C., Sutton, A.J., Altman, D.G. (2007). Where Next for Evidence Synthesis of Prognostic Marker Studies? Improving the Quality and Reporting of Primary Studies to Facilitate Clinically Relevant Evidence-Based Results. In: Auget, JL., Balakrishnan, N., Mesbah, M., Molenberghs, G. (eds) Advances in Statistical Methods for the Health Sciences. Statistics for Industry and Technology. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-8176-4542-7_3

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